t moment, I
would have led my men in, and we would have honourably died for the
glory of Nippon, destroying as many of the enemy as we could before
`going out' ourselves. But entry, at least swiftly enough to take the
Russians by surprise, was not possible, the parapet being protected by
substantial _chevaux de brise_ which we could neither have surmounted
nor broken down without attracting attention; I was therefore obliged to
content myself with giving them what you call a `scare.' Ranging my men
in open order along the rear parapet, so that only their heads and their
levelled revolvers could be seen, I loudly called upon the Russians to
surrender!

"My dear Swinburne, it was worth all the toil of that climb up the
cliff, and up the steep slope of the hill, to behold the blank dismay of
those Russians. It did not last long, though; to give them the credit
due to them, they were brave fellows, and the moment they realised the
situation, they simply laughed at us, regarding our exploit as a joke--
as indeed it was, more than anything else.

"But the joke had its grim side, too; for the commandant immediately
ordered his men to cover us with their rifles, and then ordered us to
surrender.

"`How are you going to take us?' I asked.

"`Throw your revolvers over here to me,' he ordered; `and I will send
out some men to conduct you to the town.'

"`No,' I said.

"`If you do not, I shall be compelled to shoot,' he said.

"`Then, shoot, and be hanged to you,' I replied; and giving a sign to my
men, we opened fire with our revolvers at the same moment that the
Russians blazed away at us with their rifles. And not until every
chamber of our revolvers was empty did we turn and race down that hill
toward the head of the cleft by which we had ascended."

"Did you suffer any loss?" I asked.

"None at all," was the cheerful answer. "The bullets hummed about our
ears like mosquitoes in the summer-time, but not one of us was even
touched. On the other hand, I saw several Russians fall before our
fire, and I think that at least thirty of them must have gone down
before we turned and honourably `hooked it,' as you would say."

I smiled. Good old Ito! He was a splendid fellow, honest as the day,
utterly unassuming, brave as a lion, everything in short that a shipmate
should be; but it was evident that the habit of introducing that
favourite expression "honourable" in conjunction with a bit of British
slang, was inve